Natural (Escondida)


Pedro Luis Ferrer's music has a wonderfully familiar, spine-tingling tropical sway -- an ebullience that's part and parcel of much of Cuba's traditional music. But as Ferrer himself says, there are many ways to be Cuban. In Ferrer's case, it means music that any innocent will recognize as Cuban, but which any Cuban will tell you is slightly off-center. Oh, sure, Ferrer plays tres. But he also invents a whole array of hybrid acoustic instruments that texture the cadences with delightful hiccups, unexpected dips and scary-yet-exciting musical detours. Nothing's easy, no matter how sweet Ferrer and his marvelously talented vocalist daughter, Lena, sound. Ferrer is an errant satellite in Cuba's musical world -- still tethered to the island ("Natural," like last year's revelatory "Rustico," was recorded in the heart of Havana in his home studio), singing about the neighborhood dreamboat with no hands ("who's perfect in every other way"), and about the heartbreak of waking from dreams of Utopia ("repeating the same formula endlessly/with the old hope of equality"). He doesn't care about salsa or reggaeton, speaks well of Miami but refuses to leave his country. Ferrer calls for evolution instead of revolution -- which may be why he's barely tolerated by Cuba's cultural establishment and banned from radio.

-Achy Obejas